Global Solo Challenge: Who are your heroes from the world of Solo Sailing? Part #1
by Global Solo Challenge 27 Aug 2022 06:11 PDT
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston © Bill Rowntree / PPL
For anyone who has an interest in solo ocean sailing, particularly circumnavigation, they will have their heroes, people who have inspired them in their sailing, and indeed their lives.
Intrepid, clever, determined people who have achieved remarkable feats in quite remarkable circumstances.
Now my colleague, Helena, has already written about the Women sailors who made the history of solo sailing, so I thought I would write a series of articles on sailing heros starting from my own personal Hall of Fame. In later articles, we will pose the same questions to the organisers of the Global Solo Challenge and some famous sailors of our time. We've asked each person to select just five and it is not an easy task (my list has 6). Each person has many sailors they look up to or that inspired them, so these are simply my personal favorites (at least one woman would have made my top, but as I said, Helena has already covered these sailors).
Joshua Slocum
It was way back in 1898 that Slocum became the first man to circumnavigate the Globe, single-handedly, returning to his home port in America, after having had over three years at sea and having covered over 74,000 km (though he did stop a number of times).
In his 36-foot sloop, the Spray, Slocum had developed a system where he could sail his boat by lashing the helm and then balancing this by reefing the sails, so he hardly had to touch the helm, whilst sailing, during this epic voyage.
His book about the voyage 'Sailing Alone Around the World' became an international best seller. Indeed the author Arthur Ransome declared: "Boys who do not like this book ought to be drowned at once."
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